Film Studies and Cinematography - Project 03: Animatics

October 05, 2025

Film Studies and Cinematography - Project 03: Animatics

29/11/2025 - 04/01/2025 | Week 10 - Week 15

Koh Sher Wei | 0353816

Film Studies and Cinematography | Bachelor of Design in Creative Media

MIB

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10mnuY4e6RK5snsYdwdZTehnUzHFyyaXB/view?usp=sharing

Project 3: Animatics

Instruction

After completing our pitch bible, we are required to start with thumbnail sketches to produce our final animatic. Then, a storyboard is needed for descriptive and editing purposes. We should include scene descriptions, panel numbers, camera shot, transitions, audio and duration. The final animatic should be between 1 to 3 minutes, with audio added.

Sketching Process

Initially, I started with a rough sketch of each panel to figure out the overall flow of my desired animatic outcome. However, I had issues with sketching frames that required different depth and angles. Specifically, for the ariel-shot/over-the-shoulder plantation scene, I didn't know how to capture the look of a kalanchoe pinnata plantation so that part took quite a while for me to figure out.

During consultation, Mr. Kannan told me to work layer-by-layer so that I can understand how depth works in monochrome sketches. So, I restarted on the sketches, and drew each frame layer by layer until I was able to get my desired outcome. Everything I drew was separated into layers, and each frame had at least 3 layers: background, shading, foreground/sketch.

For the fire frame, I just took my illustration from project 02: pitch bible and desaturated it. As I already had the existed layers for the fire and ariel shot view.

Storyboarding

Once my thumbnail sketch was approved by Mr. Kannan, I organised all the panels into a canva slide and started on the storyboard descriptions. I tried to imagine each scene and added the camera shots, transitions as well as audio accordingly. The pacing/duration of each panel was also just a rough guide on how long I wanted each frame to be but I would have to refine it when editing the animatic later on.

Frame by frame sketch

After storyboarding, I went into procreate and sketched out all my panels in 1280 x 720 resolution. Then used the app's built-in animation frame guide to see how the animatic would play out. I added frames in between panels that felt too sudden and also added some movement for each scene so that the animatic would flow better and smoother. Doing this helped ensure that the animatic wouldn't end up being completely made up of only still frames.

This is a video timelapse of my frame-by-frame sketch, which took almost 2 weeks to complete. The overall process was a bit tedious so the timelapse is quite long.

Editing the Animatic

In total, there was about 66 frames that I exported from procreate. Each layer was exported as a png, saved into google drive and imported int Premier Pro. Then, I removed the gray panel placeholders and replaced them with a black video which can be created in Premier Pro.

The assembly of each frame took quite some time, as I had to figure the pacing I wanted for each frame. I also had to factor in transitions and cut scenes. Replaying the video multiple times to ensure each frame came together smoothly. I also added video effects like blur and camera shake, just for more flare and dramatic effect. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to capture the movement and urgency of the climax scene.

This was my initial animatic outcome without audio. The animatic was about 1m10s. After consultation with Mr.Kannan, he gave me some suggestions on how to pace my frames better. The intro should have about 2/3s for fade in, and some of the beginning scenes lasted too short. The ending scene also should be longer, the plant growing should be gradual and not rushed through.

After some refinement, this was the final animatic without audio. With a duration of 1m22s.

Adding audio

In a new Premiere Pro file, I imported my animatic video and started on adding sound effects, background music and ambience. All the audio files I used are from browsing Youtube, Freesound.org and Pixabay.

I used four audio layers, one for BGM, 1 for Ambience, 1 for sound effects, and another one for any additional audio that I wanted to layer on. The wind sound and fire sounds required additional layering to make the sound more dramatic. Every audio was edited using Essential sound, playing with the reverb and presets so that they can blend together well. I also adjusted the volumes and transitions between each scene.